Wedding season is over here at LoC and the month of December has been about wrapping up the deliverables from my fall weddings and taking Christmas portraits, cleaning up my office, and thinking about what I want to achieve next year. It’s time to slow down and look around at where I was, where I’ve made it to (thanks to you loyal clients) and where I want to go.
This is a picture of my son on Thanksgiving weekend. He took a hike with me, my wife and my father-in-law back into the middle of nowhere at Ohiopyle in PA to see a bunch of rocks and water called “The Cascades”. I took one camera. An big, clunky, 4×5. That meant I also hauled a tripod and a pack full of film holders. Oh, and a light meter. This was about 1/4 of the way to our destination when I stopped to take a shot of the landscape back up into the woods. That shot is on Porta 400 color film that will be sent off to the lab on Monday for processing, but he decided he wanted his picture there as well. He doesn’t ask often so I made sure to take one. He wanted it.
Shooting on film makes me slow down. Shooting with a 4×5 on a tripod with a ground glass focusing screen that composes upside down makes me slow down even more. Composing, metering, setting the film holder…it’s slow. Add in the time sitting in the dark loading the carriers, and 30 minutes in my bathroom…errr..darkroom…hunched over trays developing the negatives and it can be painfully slow. It makes you value each frame. It’s make you take a deep breath.
And it makes me better and what I do for my clients.
Digital frames are throw aways. Take a million. Doesn’t cost you a thing once you buy the card. Film makes you count your pennies. How bad do I want this shot? 35mm gives you 24 chances, 120mm gives you 15, 4×5 gives you one.
Think about that next time your shooting for a client. How bad do I want this shot? Your client wants that shot a lot. Make it the best you can give them. Think about it before snapping the shutter. Is the background right, is the subject right, is the light right, will I have to fix this later? Is it what the client wants?
Slow down…look around…